Perhaps “Slow Genocide” would have been a more appropriate term!

The following is a Reuters’ report concerning the latest Amnesty finding on some of Israeli crimes that are being committed in Gaza. Unfortunately, the report makes no mention of the atrocities committed by Israel before or after their 22-day bombardment of Gaza. Meanwhile, the slow genocide in Gaza continues …

Amnesty says Israel “wantonly” destroyed Gaza

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Amnesty International said on Thursday Israel inflicted “wanton destruction” in the Gaza Strip in attacks that often targeted Palestinian civilians during an offensive in December and January in the Hamas-run enclave.

The London-based rights group, in a 117-page report on the 22 days of fighting, also criticized the Islamist movement Hamas for rocket attacks on Israel, which it called “war crimes.”

Among other conclusions, Amnesty said it found no evidence to support Israeli claims that Gaza guerrillas deliberately used civilians as “human shields,” but it did, however, cite evidence that Israeli troops put children and other civilians in harm’s way by forcing them to remain in homes taken over by soldiers.

Amnesty International said some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, including 300 children and hundreds of innocent civilians, a figure broadly in line with those from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza and the independent Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The Israeli military put the Palestinian death toll at 1,166 of whom 295 were civilians. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians, during the offensive Israel launched with the declared aim of curtailing cross-border rocket attacks.

Accusing Israel of “breaching laws of war,” Amnesty said: “Much of the destruction was wanton and deliberate, and was carried out in a manner and circumstances which indicated that it could not be justified on grounds of military necessity.”

Commenting on Amnesty’s allegations, the Israeli military said it operated in accordance with international law. It said the report ignored “efforts made by the Israel Defense Forces to minimize, as much as possible, harm to non-combatants.”

“In many cases, the Israel Defense Forces exercised measures of caution, including warning the civilian population before an attack,” the military said. “The Israel Defense Forces directed its attack only against military targets.”

A Hamas spokesman said the Amnesty report did not place enough emphasis on “crimes committed by Israel.”

“This report equates between the aggressor and the victim and ignores international laws that guarantee resistance against occupation,” the spokesman said.

U.N. INQUIRY

Israel and Hamas have both rejected accusations of war crimes during the Gaza fighting. Israel has refused to cooperate with a United Nations inquiry that is now gathering evidence, accusing the investigators of prejudice against it.

Amnesty said although rockets fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip rarely cause casualties, their use was “indiscriminate and hence unlawful under international law.” The rockets often sow fear and panic.

It also accused Hamas and other armed groups of endangering the lives of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza by firing rockets and locating military equipment near homes.

The report however dismissed Israeli claims that Hamas had used Palestinian civilians as “human shields.”

Amnesty said it found no evidence that “Hamas or other armed groups forced residents to stay in or around buildings used by fighters, or that fighters prevented residents from leaving buildings or areas which had been commandeered by militants.”

But the report said in several cases Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians, including children, as “human shields, endangering their lives by forcing them to remain in or near houses which they took over and used as military positions.”

Now, indict his former Commander in Chief

US ex-soldier found guilty of Iraq rape and murder by Kentucky jury

A jury in the state of Kentucky has found a former US soldier guilty of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder her family.

Steven Green, 24, was found guilty on all 17 counts and faces a possible death sentence for his crimes.

“Four other soldiers are serving sentences of between five and 110 years for their roles in the 2006 attack.” BBC reported.

Three of the soldiers had admitted holding down their victim, Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, raping her and then murdering her, her parents and her younger sister at the family’s home in Mahmudiya before torching the building.

He will be sentenced on Monday.

“In August 2007, Private Jesse Spielman was convicted of conspiracy to rape and murder and sentenced to 110 years in prison for his role in the incident.”

Schools reopen in Gaza

Palestinian students study outside a tent used as makeshift classroom, in Rafah, south Gaza on January 25, 2009. Their school, destroyed by Israel’s devastating three-week attack on Gaza, reopened in on Saturday. (UPI Photo/Ismael Mohamad). Image may be subject to copyright.

Israel says Spain says it will amend war crimes law

Fri Jan 30, 2009 4:35pm EST

JERUSALEM, Jan 30 (Reuters) – Israel said on Friday the Spanish government had said it would work to amend a law under which a Madrid court is to consider trying seven Israelis over the killing of Palestinians.

Spain’s High Court announced this week it would launch a war crimes investigation into a Israeli ex-defense minister and six other top security officials for their role in a 2002 attack that killed a Hamas commander and 14 civilians in Gaza.

Spanish law allows the prosecution of foreigners for such crimes as genocide, crimes against humanity and torture committed anywhere in the world.

“I was just told by the Spanish foreign minister that Spain decided to change the legislation,” Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told journalists after a telephone conversation with her Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos.

“In order to change the possibility of different organizations, political organizations, to abuse the legal system in Spain in order to put charges against Israelis and others that are fighting terror.”

Spain’s Foreign Ministry did not reply to repeated telephone requests for confirmation.

Spanish state television TVE quoted government sources as saying the possibility of a legal “adjustment or modification” may have been mentioned, but it would not be retroactive and would not affect the case before the courts.

The case, filed on behalf of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, has sent shockwaves through Israel, which is trying to fend off foreign censure over the civilian casualty toll from its 22-day offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Calls to investigate Israel over alleged war crimes in Gaza conflict prompted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to promise military personnel state protection from foreign prosecution.

Any government-initiated changes to Spanish law would have to be approved by congress. TVE said Spain would not renounce universal jurisdiction, which has been on its statute books since 1870.

Livni, who gave no details on how Spain planned to amend the law or handle the case against Israel, said of her conversation with Moratinos:

“I think that this is very important news and I hope that other states in Europe will do the same, and will follow this.” (Writing by Dan Williams; additional reporting by Jason Webb and Martin Roberts in Madrid; editing by Andrew Roche)

The following otherwise well-written Editorial by The Observer (UK), dated Sunday 18 January 2009 assumes that Israel previously had any space on high moral ground!

The world will know in the coming months whether a renewed claim to Gaza Strip is a proposition Israel cannot ignore!

A pointless war has led to a moral defeat for Israel

Editorial
The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009

In historical terms, it is impossible to separate Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza from the long narrative of conflict and mutual grievance in the region.

A Palestinian touches the head of a teenager after he was shot by Israeli troops in the West Bank city of Hebron January 16, 2009. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun. Image may be subject to copyright.

In geographic terms, the war over a tiny plot of land cannot be detached from the wider involvement and strategic interests of other countries: Syria, Egypt, the US, Iran.

All of which makes it difficult to judge where – even if a unilateral Israeli ceasefire holds – the war really begins and ends.

That fact alone explains why the operation represents a defeat for Israel, as was always likely to be the outcome. The notion that the country’s security problems can be resolved by the unilateral use of extreme force is a persistent delusion among Israeli politicians. In this case, the problem was perceived to be Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel; the solution was judged to be a war against Hamas. That analysis did not allow for the vital, humane recognition that, in densely populated Gaza, an all-out war against Hamas is, by necessity, an attack on the civilian population.

[Deadly Israeli Assault.] An Israeli soldier covers his ears as a mobile artillery unit fires a shell towards Gaza in the early morning near the Gaza border during Israel’s offensive January 17, 2009. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis. Image may be subject to copyright.

Even on its own terms, the campaign has failed. Israeli authorities will insist that they have limited the ability of Hamas to launch rocket attacks. But the ostensible war aim was destroying that capability completely.

Israel will also claim that its campaign has exposed a lack of support for Hamas in many Arab capitals; that Hamas’ position as the ruling authority in Gaza has been undermined; and that Hamas has been revealed as little more than a terrorist proxy acting on behalf of and armed by Syria and Iran.

But the reality is that the status of Hamas as the preferred vehicle for Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation has been enhanced by the indiscriminate brutality of the military assault.

[Retaliatory Palestinian Fire Power!] A Palestinian stone-thrower uses a slingshot to throw a stone towards Israeli border police officers (not pictured) during scuffles at Qalandiya checkpoint near the West Bank city of Ramallah January 16, 2009. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman. Image may be subject to copyright.

Meanwhile, that status guarantees the resurgence, in some form, of armed response, including rocket fire and terrorist attacks on Israeli soil. It is possible that Hamas’ military capability has been drastically reduced. But even when Israel had full command of Gaza’s external borders, it could not stop the trade in smuggled weapons. Sadly, Hamas will re-arm with or without a ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile, any increased consideration of Iranian or Syrian sponsorship of terrorism will pale against global outrage at the extraordinary disregard shown by Israeli forces for the lives of Palestinian civilians. It is quite possible, as the Observer today reports, that an Israeli withdrawal will reveal evidence of actions deserving indictment as war crimes. Those allegations must be independently investigated.

Israel’s allies in the west, chiefly the US, have traditionally defended the country on the grounds that it is a democracy besieged by despotic regimes and terrorists. But while Israeli citizens do enjoy immense political and social freedom, those values do not automatically prevent the state from committing atrocities.

The fact of Israeli democracy is not a reason to resist negotiations with Hamas. That was true before this pointless, brutal war and will remain so afterwards.

Dr Marina Kochieva says her car was targeted by a Georgian tank. Source: BBC. Image may be subject to copyright.

“Indiscriminate use of force is a violation of the Geneva Conventions,” BBC said, “and serious violations are considered to be war crimes.” [As if that has stopped George Bush’s corporate military from committing war crimes and heinous crimes against humanity in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria …]

David [how the heck did you get here] Miliband said “he had raised the issue of possible Georgian war crimes with the government in Tbilisi.” [BBC reported. But he didn’t state what Tbilisi rplied.]

They went on firing all the next day without stopping. At some point there was a pause, and we saw Georgian soldiers going along the street in their Nato uniforms

Taya Sitnik

Source: BBC. Image may be subject to copyright.

Georgia unleashed an indiscriminate barrage of heavy artillery, rockets and ground-to-ground missiles on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, on 7 August 7, 2008. Tbilisi first said that it was responding to attacks on its own villages by South Ossetia militia, which of course was untrue. Georgia later changed its story and said the attack was provoked by an earlier Russian invasion, which of course was also a lie.

Georgy Tadtayev, a 21-year-old dental student, was one of the Ossetian civilians killed during the fighting.

His mother, Taya Sitnik, 45, a college lecturer, told the BBC he bled to death in her arms on the morning of 9 August after a fragment from a Georgian tank shell hit him in the throat as they were both sheltering from artillery fire in the basement of her block of flats.

Mrs Sitnik said she subsequently saw the tank positioned a few metres from the building, firing shells into every floor.

Extensive damage to the five-storey block appeared consistent with her version of events.

She said she and her son were watching television when the Georgian attack began.

“They started firing not from rifles, but from heavy weapons. Shells were exploding.”

“We jumped up straight away, switched off the lights and ran down to the cellar.”

“And we sat here on boxes. We thought it would end, but the firing got heavier and heavier,” she added.

We’re very concerned at the use of indiscriminate force by the Georgian military

Allison Gill
Human Rights Watch

“They went on firing all the next day without stopping. At some point there was a pause, and we saw Georgian soldiers going along the street in their Nato uniforms,” according to Mrs Sitnik.

“Then they started firing again, even more heavily. The Grad rockets were coming over all the time.”

“How can you trust those people now? What possible friendship can there be? Let them all be cursed, cursed for the deaths of our children.”

Neighbours said another resident of the block, Khazbi Gagloyev, also died of wounds received during the attacks.

‘Basements targeted’

The Russian prosecutor’s office is investigating more than 300 possible cases of civilians killed by the Georgian military.

Some of those may be Ossetian paramilitaries, but Human Rights Watch believes the figure of 300-400 civilians is a “useful starting point”.

That would represent more than 1% of the population of Tskhinvali – the equivalent of 70,000 deaths in London.

Allison Gill, director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, said: We’re very concerned at the use of indiscriminate force by the Georgian military in Tskhinvali.

“Tskhinvali is a densely populated city and as such military action needs to be very careful that it doesn’t endanger civilians.”

“We know that in the early stages there were tank attacks and Grad rockets used by Georgian forces,” she added.

“Grad rockets cannot be used in densely populated areas because they cannot be precisely targeted, and as such they are inherently indiscriminate.

“Our researchers were on the ground in Tskhinvali as early as 12 August.

“And we gained evidence and witness testimony of Grad rocket attacks and tank attacks on apartment buildings, including tank attacks that shot at the basement level.

“And basements are typically areas where civilians will hide for their own protection.

“So all of this points to the misuse, the inappropriate use of force by Georgia against civilian targets,” according to Alison Gill.

Human Rights Watch will talk only of the “possible” deliberate targeting by Georgian forces of individual civilians, a still more serious charge, though some Ossetians the BBC spoke to in Tskhinvali claim to have witnessed such cases.

Many Tskhinvali buildings were damaged during the attack. Source: BBC. Image may be subject to copyright.

Wreckage

Marina Kochieva, a doctor at Tskhinvali’s main hospital, says she herself was targeted by a Georgian tank as she and three relatives were trying to escape by car from the town on the night of 9 August.

She says the tank fired on her car and two other vehicles, forcing them to crash into a ditch.

The firing continued as she and her companions lay on the ground.

She showed the BBC the burnt-out wreckage of the car on the town’s ring-road, riddled with bullet holes and with a much larger hole, apparently from a tank round, in the front passenger door.

Ms Kochieva says a nurse from her hospital was killed while fleeing Tskhinvali in similar circumstances.

She says she counted 18 burnt-out cars on the ring-road on 13 August, at the end of the war, suggesting there may have been more casualties.

Asked if, at night, Georgian soldiers might not have suspected her car of carrying Ossetian fighters, Ms Kochieva said: “Fighters wouldn’t have gone away from town, they would have gone towards town. We were escaping like other refugees.

“The Georgians knew this was the ‘Road of Life’ for Ossetians. They were sitting here waiting to kill us,” she said.

An international citizen’s tribunal on the crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon will be held at the International Associations Center in Brussels, Belgium, on February 22-24, 2008. The International Action Center has endorsed this tribunal and the work of the Commitee of International Citizens that is organizing the tribunal. Included below is a letter from the organizers, a program for the Tribunal and the original call with the first list of signers. To contact the organizers:Email: contact.tribunal@yahoo.fr Blog: WWW.tciccg.over-blog.com

An international citizen’s tribunal on the crimes committed by the Israeli army in LebanonBrussels, 22-23-24 February 2008

The moderators sincerely hope the above campaign is not another black hole of inaction by the gatekeepers!

Killing Toddlers for Instant Gratification

Wild animals don’t kill or harm other animals for pleasure. Israeli soldiers and settlers brutalize and kill Palestinian children for instant gratification.

“It’s 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn’t so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.
‘He grabbed the boy. […] He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left.” Read more…

Since September 2007 at least 952 Palestinian children have been murdered by Israelis. An estimated 20,000 children have been wounded. [Source: Remember These Children and others.]

“The majority of these [Palestinian] children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers.” – Catherine Cook